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Two Senators from opposing parties have put aside their differences to demand an investigation into the stolen identities that led to millions of fake net neutrality comments on the FCC's website. In a letter addressed to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) said they were "among those whose identities were misused to express viewpoints [they] do not hold" on the FCC's net neutrality proposals. They're now asking the commission to identify the entity behind the fake comments, as well as to adopt safeguards to prevent the same incident from happening in the future.

For years, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg touted the company's Internet.org initiative that sought to bring connectivity to everyone in the world. It was presented an ambitious humanitarian effort, but things didn't go according to plan. Wired tells the story of what happened to the project following criticism and bans from local governments.

Earlier this week, Senate Democrats, with the help of three Republicans, managed to pass a resolution to save net neutrality before its upcoming repeal in June. Now their counterparts in the House are trying to rally enough signatures to force a similar vote in that chamber. They have 90 Democrats but need over 20 Republican representatives to break ranks and sign on. The road to saving net neutrality is still very uphill.

The Senate voted today on whether to reject the FCC decision to remove net neutrality protections -- and though it was unclear for some time whether the Democrats would gain enough Republican support to pass the measure, they did. Along with the 49 Senate Democrats, three Republican Senators -- Susan Collins (ME), John Kennedy (LA) and Lisa Murkowski (AK) -- voted to repeal the changes put into place by the FCC in December, resulting in a 52-47 tally. The new regulations are currently scheduled to go into effect June 11th. However, while this battle may have been won by those in support of net neutrality, there's still a long, hard road ahead, and the Senate measure isn't likely to survive.

A spirited campaign by Democratic lawmakers to save net neutrality has passed the Senate, moving one step closer toward forestalling its scheduled demise on June 11th. The vote was predictably close along party lines: In addition to every Democrat supporting the legislation, the final 52-47 tally featured three Republican legislators, Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and John Kennedy (R-LA), voting in favor of the bill.

For those of you who have been hoping that the Senate will save net neutrality, we now have a date for that vote. Senate Democrats led by Edward Markey (D-MA), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) will force a vote on Wednesday, May 16th.

The FCC has been trying to squash robocalls for quite some time and even adopted a new set of rules aimed at shutting them down late last year. Now, it has slapped one of the biggest robocall operators with a $120 million fine -- the largest amount it has ever imposed -- showing others like him that the agency is determined to take them down. The FCC has given Adrian Abramovich from Miami a massive penalty for being responsible for 96 million robocalls that used a scheme called "neighbor spoofing." This technique masks the real callers' number with a fake one that uses the area code and the first three digits of the recipients' phone number, making them more likely to pick up.

Net neutrality officially dies June 11th, almost three years to the day after it was put into law. In a press release (PDF) from Ajit Pai's office, the former Verizon counsel (above) repeated his rhetoric that the internet was never broken and bemoaned Title II rules as being "heavy handed" and "outdated."

Today, Senate Democrats filed a petition that will force a vote on the FCC's removal of net neutrality protections. The FCC's decision was published in the Federal Register on February 22nd and as per the Congressional Review Act, the Senate has 60 days from that date to take action. "I believe today kicks off the most important week for the internet that the Senate has ever seen," Senator Edward Markey (D-MA) said during a speech today.

Ever since Google rebranded Android Wear as Wear OS, there's been a lingering question: when would there be a new smartwatch to spearhead Google's wearable revival? Apparently, the answer is "soon." An FCC filing has revealed an LG-made Wear OS device that may just tout some unique features. For one, this isn't using the usual Android Wear interface. The usual vertical app list has been replaced by a Samsung Gear-style circular carousel (shown below) with the name of the selected app front and center. There's no cellular access on this model, which suggests that it'd be a spiritual successor to the Watch Style -- and there may be evidence to back up that claim.

Fight for the Future has announced another day of action aimed at encouraging support of a Congressional vote to overturn the FCC's removal of net neutrality protections. In December, the FCC voted to overturn Obama-era net neutrality protections, a decision that was published in the Federal Register on February 22nd. The Senate has 60 days from that date to overturn the decision, as per the Congressional Review Act, and Democrats are planning to take the procedural step to force such a vote on May 9th. Between May 9th and the vote, BattleForTheNet.com is calling for websites to "go red" as part of its Red Alert for Net Neutrality Campaign.

Democrats in Congress have been against the FCC's repeal of net neutrality rules from the beginning. They've had the signatures in favor of restoring the rules since January, along with a companion House bill (with 80 co-sponsors). Senator Edward J. Markey also introduced a formal Congressional Review Act "resolution of disapproval" in February. Now, Markey tweeted that Democrats will force a floor vote restore the rules on May 9th.

Now that Facebook is facing the possibility of stronger government oversight, it's putting someone who knows how the government works in charge of public policy. The social network has appointed former FCC chief Kevin Martin, who led the agency from 2005 to 2009 under the Bush administration, as interim head of US public policy. Martin isn't a new recruit -- he joined Facebook back in 2015 as VP for mobile and global access policy -- but now he's replacing Erin Egan, who used to be head of public policy and Chief Privacy Officer.

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn has announced that she will be stepping down from the commission following a tenure that featured a strong advocacy of net neutrality. Commissioner Clyburn shared her plans to leave the commission during an FCC meeting today. Appointed to the commission in 2009 by Barack Obama, she also held the position of Acting Chairwoman in 2013 prior to Tom Wheeler's appointment as Chair.

A former broadband advisor picked by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to push high-speed internet access in rural areas has been arrested on multi-million dollar fraud charges. It is alleged that during her time with Alaska-based fiber optic cable provider Quintillion, former CEO Elizabeth Pierce raised more than $250 million from investment firms in New York using forged contracts from other companies. By using bogus documents, she convinced other investors that Quintillion had already secured backing from elsewhere, leading them to believe their investment was stronger than it actually was.

T-Mobile has agreed to pay (PDF) the FCC $40 million for failing to fix ongoing call failures for rural customers. The carrier previously claimed that it had resolved the problem, but the Commission kept getting complaints about calls that weren't going through. The company also admitted it had committed another grave FCC sin: Injecting false ring tones while customers are on the line, which misleads them into thinking the carrier isn't to blame if a call fails.

On the same day that an Apple memo urging employees to stop leaking company info leaked, the company is now dealing with another, well, leak. But, this time it wasn't anyone from inside Apple who spilled the goods; it was the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). As spotted by 9to5Mac, a gold iPhone X appears to have arrived at the FCC offices, which is surprising considering Apple hasn't made an official announcement about the new color on its flagship smartphone. The tones on this iPhone X are quite shiny and, at a glance, look like a darker version of those on the gold iPhone 8. One of the main differences with the gold iPhone X is that it has black bezels, whereas the gold iPhone 8 comes with white ones. Apple just tried a similar formula with the Product RED iPhone 8 Plus we checked out yesterday.

It's getting increasingly difficult for internet providers to take advantage of the FCC's looming net neutrality repeal. Oregon Governor Kate Brown has signed the state's recently passed net neutrality bill (HB 4155) into law, forcing ISPs to honor net neutrality if they want to secure government contracts. As with other states' legislative campaigns (including Kansas, Tennessee and Wisconsin), the measure is a creative workaround that enshrines equal treatment of internet traffic without directly overriding the FCC's order.

Earlier this week, reports surfaced that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had detected activity in Washington DC that was consistent with the use of cell-site simulators, or Stingrays. The findings were a result of a short-term trial that took place last year and they suggest that foreign powers could be using these unauthorized devices to monitor officials, travelers and residents in the US capital. In a letter to Senator Ron Wyden, the DHS said that it didn't have the resources to continuously monitor the use of such devices but it did share its findings with "federal partners." Following those reports, three US Representatives have now sent the FCC a letter demanding the commission take action against unauthorized Stingray use.

In a statement, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said: "Although we still have much to do with this complex undertaking, this is an important step toward SpaceX building a next-generation satellite network that can link the globe with reliable and affordable broadband service, especially reaching those who are not yet connected."

There are still some issues to figure out, like the exact process for dealing with space debris, interference with radio telescopes and managing the distance between all of these proposed networks. You can read through the entire opinion here (PDF), or just wait for more launches of internet satellites starting next year.

The FCC announced a proposal today that aims to more fully shut out companies "that pose a national security threat to United States communications networks or the communications supply chain." If approved, an upcoming Notice of Proposed Rulemaking will seek to disallow the use of the FCC's Universal Service Fund -- which subsidizes those that bring broadband internet to rural regions of the US -- for purchasing equipment and services from certain companies based abroad. "The money in the Universal Service Fund comes from fees paid by the American people, and I believe that the FCC has the responsibility to ensure that this money is not spent on equipment or services that pose a threat to national security," FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement today.

The FCC under Tom Wheeler took early steps to loosen regulations in the name of accelerating 5G rollouts, and the new commission is making good on those plans. The regulator has adopted new rules that scrap certain environmental checks for new cellular and wireless broadband sites. Small facilities on non-native land are no longer subject to reviews under the National Historic Preservation Act or the National Environmental Policy Act. They'll still be bound by local- and state-level rules, but they won't have to wait for the feds to give the all-clear.

It was a parabolic week for space nerds. The president teased the creation of a fourth military branch dubbed the "Space Force," world-renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking passed away at the age of 76, and NASA's acting chief retired without someone ready to succeed him. But hey, at least to listen to Elon Musk's Wonka-esque visions for the future of spaceflight during his sold out SXSW keynote. Numbers because the only thing harder than math is space.

The previous FCC leadership took some aggressive steps to fight robocalls, but they've just been scaled back. A DC Circuit appeals court has shot down an FCC rule for reportedly going far in its definition of an autodialer. The regulations defined an autodialer as any device that could dial numbers that were either stored or produced using a number generator, but Judge Sri Srinivasan saw that as far too generic. Some smartphone calls theoretically broke the law, he said. As an example, the judge noted that you technically faced a $500 fine if you called someone to invite them after obtaining their number through a friend.